Fruit Bat II (2016) short film review

The second episode in a web-series the revolves around a vegetarian vampire, we review Fruit Bat II from writer/director Alex J. Murphy.

We don’t get enough shows sent to us to review here at Screen Critix. We get plenty of short films and features, but not near enough series to peruse over. Thankfully, Alex J. Murphy has presented us with the opportunity to critique an episode in her online comedy series Fruit Bat.

As has been mentioned numerous times before, comedy is quite possibly the hardest genre to get right. To create something that is funny is extremely difficult. Most “comedies” are tragic and have to resort to toilet humour in place of original and essential comedy. Luckily, Murphy has some jokes up her sleeve to make Fruit Bat II a five-minute long success. We haven’t seen the first episode in the series, but we don’t feel that it is actually a necessity, as Fruit Bat II works well on its own.

Two brothers, Eugene and Lenny (played by David J Marzano and Peter Coleman respectively) are invited to a house party. Yet this is no ordinary house party – it’s a vampire house party, and the two brothers are vampires as well. Well sort of. You see, whilst he may have the fangs and pale white skin, Eugene is actually a vegetarian. Of course, Lenny doesn’t want his brother to cause a scene at the party, so he has a stern word before entering, but Eugene can’t help himself and, with the help of some pamphlets, he tries to convince the party goers that drinking blood is unnatural.

As aforementioned, Fruit Bat II is very short, but Alex J. Murphy manages to pack a lot of great visual gags and funny one-liners into the short episode. The writing is strong and the episode has professional production values. The camera work is decent, as is the sound and the performances from all the actors involved.

Now, we are eagerly awaiting the next installment in the series or, we would love to see a full feature based on the characters. The premise certainly has the legs to do so……or should we say wings?